Imagine a terrifying scenario in which two particles carrying enormous momentum eventually collide at a speed very close to the speed of light, creating an earth-shattering explosion in the microscopic world after accelerating in an underground circular orbit somewhere in Europe.
A miniature black hole was created, constantly devouring everything around it, plunging the earth into ruin;
Or the creation of a new exotic substance that can also transform the surrounding matter into a strange substance, rolling larger and larger like a snowball, and there is no way to stop it.
This seems to be a cliché, because the European Nuclear Research Center (CERN), which runs the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), has long stood up to "debunk the rumors", the LHC will not create black holes, and even if it does, it will evaporate in an instant, and it is impossible to swallow the earth;
Exotic matter is currently only a theoretically possible substance, which has not yet been confirmed, and it is impossible for the LHC to produce exotic matter.
The Large Hadron Collider is not in any danger and there is no reason to worry;
No matter what the large hadron collision chance does, nature has already done it countless times in the life cycle of the Earth and other celestial bodies!
Sounds like a lot of sense, but what if this terrible scenario was proposed by a top scientist? Will you still be so calm?
This scientist is Martin John Rees, former president of the Royal Society, a well-known theoretical astronomer and mathematician, who was the dean of the School of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge, the dean of Trinity College of Cambridge University, and the famous Professor of Prumian Astronomy and Experimentation at cambridge university for 19 years.
Reese has also served as President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and President of the Royal Astronomical Society.
From 1 December 2005 to 2010, Reese was President of the Royal Society.
Rees has made significant contributions to the study of the origin of the cosmic microwave background radiation, as well as to the study of the origin, formation and distribution of the Milky Way, and is also an authority on quasar research.
The aggressive, dazzlingly shiny title, the outstanding contribution to astronomical research, clearly shows that Rees is the uncompromising authority on astronomy!
But in 2018, Reese wrote a book, On the Future: Prospects for Humanity, in which he warned that if the particle accelerator experiment went wrong, it would not only be a catastrophe that would destroy the earth, but a catastrophe that would destroy the universe!
Reese writes in the book that experiments in places like the Large Hadron Collider could have fatal consequences for life on Earth.
When particles collide at nearly the speed of light, they are captured by gravity, which could theoretically form a black hole and then devour everything around them;
The second terrible possibility may be that Quark will reassemble himself into a compressed object called strange matter, contagiously transforming everything encountered around him into strange matter, and the entire earth will become a high-density sphere of only about 100 meters.
The third way particle accelerators can wipe out the Earth is to create a catastrophe that can sweep away space itself!
Rees argues that physicists claim that space is a vacuum, but that the vacuum is not just nothingness, it is the stage where everything happens, with hidden forces and particles that control all the physical world, and that the current vacuum can be fragile and unstable.
Some speculate that the powerful energy generated by the collision of particles could trigger a "phase transition" that can tear apart the structure of space, leading to a cosmic catastrophe.
Reese also explains in the book that scientific progress may be risky, but this does not mean that we have to give up completely;
Innovation is often dangerous, but if we don't give up risk, we may have to give up profit;
Physicists should be cautious when conducting experiments that have no precedent, and many see these risks as mere science fiction, but even if it is no longer possible, we cannot gamble desperately.
Reese's view is earth-shattering, and it gives us a blow in the head, but the collision between two completely invisible particles at the end of a 45-kilometer-long underground circular orbit around a small yellow star in an insignificant corner of the universe can lead to the collapse of the universe is indeed too strange.
Theoretically, however, the limit of the motion of matter in this universe is the speed of light, which means that even destruction can only travel at the speed of light.
Since we can no longer influence outside the observable universe, even if humans on Earth create some kind of phase change that can tear up space, they will never be able to tear apart the universe outside the observable universe, so the universe can never be destroyed, and Mr. Reese may be too hard to sell books!
Stay tuned: